Book Thai Capital After The 1997 Crisis

[Prakanong]

http://www.silkwormbooks.info/each_titles/...haiCapital.html

Anyone read it fully yet?

I have the book and have dipped into it - some of it is very interesting.

The chapter on the Thai Auto Industry certainly has helped me on a case study i just did on the UK West Midlands Auto Industry plus some other work on trade barriers and MNC access.

Its quite an easy read and might give those access to some economic literature about Thailand post 97 that is not available to the English reader collected in one place

[Tod Daniels]

I went to the talk the author did with another panel of authors last month at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Thailand before the book hit the shelves.

The chapter on CPB is; to say the least, very informative, putting the monarch as the richest single person in the world, with assets in excess of 40 BILLION US. Those figures are based on extrapolations of CPB holdings and assets done when the baht was much weaker than it is now.

The section on how the Charoen liquor empire (maker of Mekong Whiskey) weathered the crisis of 97 and emerged as one of the most profitable companies out of it, is also a great read. To have someone from such poor background become a mover and shaker in this country is a success story right out of a fairy tale and a testament to the working class.

Even though the author of the book is thai; at the FCCT talk she said many things which would have typically been 'off-limits' for a thai to discuss. At the beginning of the 'open forum' after the talk when we could ask questions the audience was 'cautioned' of the broad reaching and difficult to interpret lese majeste laws in effect and asked to couch our questions carefully. The person from Reuters asked some difficult questions. To her credit the author did her best to answer them in a straight forward manner without once referring to 'thai culture' or using the "talk around the issue" you so often hear when thais discuss something 'thai' to foreigners.

It is a great book, well researched and very much worth the read.

This is the introduction to the book. I got from Pasuk Phongpaichit’s website at Chula;

http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~ppasuk...crisisintro.pdf

[quiksilva]

Not yet, but its on the shopping list now, thanks!

[Prakanong]

I went to the talk the author did with another panel of authors last month at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Thailand before the book hit the shelves.

The chapter on CPB is; to say the least, very informative, putting the monarch as the richest single person in the world, with assets in excess of 40 BILLION US. Those figures are based on extrapolations of CPB holdings and assets done when the baht was much weaker than it is now.

The section on how the Charoen liquor empire (maker of Mekong Whiskey) weathered the crisis of 97 and emerged as one of the most profitable companies out of it, is also a great read. To have someone from such poor background become a mover and shaker in this country is a success story right out of a fairy tale and a testament to the working class.

Even though the author of the book is thai; at the FCCT talk she said many things which would have typically been 'off-limits' for a thai to discuss. At the beginning of the 'open forum' after the talk when we could ask questions the audience was 'cautioned' of the broad reaching and difficult to interpret lese majeste laws in effect and asked to couch our questions carefully. The person from Reuters asked some difficult questions. To her credit the author did her best to answer them in a straight forward manner without once referring to 'thai culture' or using the "talk around the issue" you so often hear when thais discuss something 'thai' to foreigners.

It is a great book, well researched and very much worth the read.

This is the introduction to the book. I got from Pasuk Phongpaichit's website at Chula;

http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~ppasuk...crisisintro.pdf

Thanks for shedding more light on that - I wish I could have been at the FCCT

I am going to point oput the Automotive chapter to the Professor who I hope will be supervising my MBA dissertation - his key research area is the automotive industry especially the east midlands of the UK and is published very widely both academically and in popular press.

The Thai automotive industry is one ara where trade barriers helped a local industry grow enough to be on the world stage - its now mostly in foreign hands though but one could argue if it had been kept local it would not be in the world top 10.

[popshirt]

Introduction is fascinating. It is now on my list also. So difficult to find such material in English here.

[Prakanong]

Introduction is fascinating. It is now on my list also. So difficult to find such material in English here.

Yes I agree about the access to the English translations of Thai works.

Some goog "Scholar" web searches will often throw up some other works as well but you often have to have access to a Uni library or work based R&D account if you do not want to pay for them.